


After

by kangamangus (orphan_account)



Series: All Time is All Time (Klaus/Dave) [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Caretaking, Concussions, Death, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Supportive Klaus, Vietnam War, War, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 23:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18271241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kangamangus
Summary: “Dave,” he whispers, wanting to comfort him, to be a pillar of support as Dave has been for him several times. But he doesn’t know what to say. He can barely support himself most of the time, let alone others, so the name hangs between them until it is drowned out by the squelching of their boots.





	After

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for injuries and death of a squadmate.

_ There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre. _

Klaus wakes up to a darkened sky and a hand on his shoulder, shaking him carefully, but urgently. He’s wet, he realizes — it’s been raining — and he’s covered in mud. When he sits up, he nearly slides right back to the ground. The hand keeps him steady. 

As his eyes focus, he realizes the hand belongs to Dave. 

“Wha—” he tries ask, the word thick, syllable elongated. It catches in his dry throat. 

They’ve been fighting for at least three days — assuming he hasn’t lost a significant amount of time while napping in a mud pit — and away from base just as long. The fighting is so much worse, now, the stakes so much higher. 

Dave is proof of that, he realizes as his brain catches up with his eyes. He’s bloody in too many places, banged up, sliced by shrapnel. Klaus reaches an unsteady hand toward his battered cheek. “You’re hurt,” he croaks out. 

“Just a scratch,” Dave replies, voice quiet. He’s distracted, patting Klaus all over, checking for serious injuries. 

There’s something unsettling about all of this, Klaus realizes as he squints against a newly discovered headache. He looks around, slowly, and realizes what it is. 

It’s quiet. He doesn’t hear any voices, not of the living, nor of the dead. The chorus of fallen soldiers that so often accompanies his time out in the field is notably absent. Klaus should appreciate the silence, rare as it is, but all it does is make him wary. “I picked the wrong time to take a nap,” he whispers, both because his throat is raw and because he knows that it is dangerous to assume they are truly alone. 

“You weren’t napping.” Dave lightly touches his head, sending a shock of pain throughout Klaus’ skull, jolting him into full awareness. 

Klaus winces. “That explains the headache.” 

“We have to go,” Dave tells him, helping him to his feet. Klaus has to hold onto him tightly to avoid slipping. 

“The others,” he reminds Dave. “Roy was —” 

With him. Roy had been just a few feet away from him. Klaus turns with urgency to locate him, but evening is giving way into darkness, and all he can see is mud and the remnants of chaos. 

Dave takes his hand, only briefly, just long enough for Klaus to refocus on him. “They’ll head back, if…” 

He trails off and Klaus mentally fills in the blanks with, _if they are feeling like a walk_ and _if they aren’t goofing off like usual_ , because those are much better phrases than the first one that comes to his mind. 

He doesn’t see them as ghosts — and that's something. 

They walk in silence for a long time. Klaus isn’t exactly known around the squad for his ability to keep his mouth shut, but this is different. This is defeat, without the pressure to drown out the dead. This is a walk of shame. Instead of speaking, he bumps into Dave, lightly, intentionally, reminding him that he’s here. They’re both still here, battered but alive. 

Dave looks toward him, and even though Klaus can no longer make out the finer details of his face, he notices the familiar incline of Dave’s head, and can picture the expression he must be wearing. 

“Dave,” he whispers, wanting to comfort him, to be a pillar of support as Dave has been for him several times. But he doesn’t know what to say. He can barely support himself most of the time, let alone others, so the name hangs between them until it is drowned out by the squelching of their boots. 

Eventually, it’s too dark to see much of anything, and they both stumble their way through brush and puddles. Klaus isn’t sure they are headed in the right direction, but moving is better than waiting to be killed, so they press on together. 

Until they hear distant chatter in Vietnamese, causing them both to stop in their tracks. 

Dave leans in close, breath against Klaus’ ear. “Could be a friendly.” 

But Klaus recognizes the Northern Vietnamese dialect used by so many of the fallen who surround him during firefights. He understands that they are talking about American soldiers. 

“Not a friendly,” he whispers back. For a wild moment, he considers the possibility that the absolute lack of ghosts around him is some kind of a coordinated plan, that maybe the enemy dead have chased everyone else away and they are waging war on both planes of existence. 

Then he wonders if he is going crazy. 

Dave has always accepted what Klaus has told him at face value, and he does the same now, without questioning how Klaus could possibly know the voices belong to the enemy — pulls him off of the path and into thicker underbrush, hopefully well out of sight. They huddle together, exhausted, and wait for the voices to fade. 

“I’m tired,” Dave confesses. 

Klaus puts and arm around him and does his best to hold him close despite being weary himself. “Take a nap. I’ll keep watch.” 

Dave dozes against him and Klaus holds him until the voices finally fade. Then, against his better judgement, he dozes, too. 

And dreams of Roy. 

Roy standing over him and yelling at him, asking him if this really looks like a good time for a nap. Roy warning him that they are headed in the wrong direction, shouting directions at him over and over again and urging him to remember them when he wakes up. 

Klaus, looking up at him from where he is huddled with Dave, only can only bring himself to ask, “Did they get you? Did they kill you, Roy?” just before he wakes with a start to a hint of light in the sky. 

He nudges Dave awake. “We have to move,” he tells him, and they struggle to stand together, the aches and pains of three days worth of fighting catching up to them. He adds, without proper build-up, “I think Roy’s gone.” 

Dave doesn’t protest, nor demand answers. He accepts the news with a heavy breath, the resigned sigh of someone who is losing hope. “I’m lost. I can’t get us back.” 

“I can,” Klaus tells him. He can't see Roy now, can barely see anything at all, dead or alive, thanks to the combination of darkness and his blinding headache. But he trusts Roy with their lives. 

Klaus guides Dave deeper into the tangle of growth, a way that should seem counterintuitive, but Dave asks no questions. For once, Klaus is the one doing the leading, and Dave hands himself over to him, completely, without hesitation. 

It’s Klaus’ turn to be the strength, the support, the one who gets them back safely. 

And he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Beginning quote is from _Slaughterhouse Five_


End file.
